Crossing Over Read Online Free Page B

having to say anything. Which made me even more
irritated with her. She could sense a spirit a mile off, but she couldn’t sense that I had just humiliated myself in front
of the only boy I wanted to impress. Wouldn’t a regular mother have noticed that?
    “I’m going to go sit down, then,” she said.
    Part of me wanted to call after her. She was going to sit by herself, and Jac’s mom wasn’t going to talk to her, and I loved
her and didn’t want her to be alone.
    But I didn’t. I stayed where I was. When the bus’s engine started up, I ducked my head, got up, and slipped back into the
seat next to Jac.
    “Where’d you go? Did you try the bathroom? Was it terrible?”
    I said nothing, just shot her a smile.
    It was definitely not okay.

Chapter 5
    “I cannot eat this,” Brooklyn Bigelow was declaring loudly. “I cannot eat anything on this menu.”
    The waitress stared at Brooklyn with mild amusement. She was young and chic, with wild thick black hair and perfectly applied
bloodred lipstick. She wore a black T-shirt, skinny jeans that clung to her as if their life depended on it, and shiny black
gladiator boots laced all the way up to her knee. She looked like she had tumbled out of the latest edition of
Vogue Paris
.
    “Do you have a salad?” Brooklyn asked, very slowly and loudly. Brooklyn appeared to think that raising the volume of her English
would make it more understandable to those who spoke other languages.
    “Sahh-ladd?” Brooklyn repeated.
    “Brook, it’s a poutine restaurant,” Shoshanna said. The Satellite Girls had commandeered one end of the long table. “That’s
what they have. That’s all they serve. Poutine. Get over it.”
    Frankly, I had assumed Sid was having a bit of a joke on us when he described the fare available at our first official meal.
Poutine was essentially a plate of french fries covered in gravy and liberally doused with chunks of something he called squeaky
cheese. We had arrived at the restaurant with voracious appetites—even Jac’s stick-thin mother was casting anxious looks in
the direction of thekitchen. The adults had their own table, and the rest of us were sitting at one long table clutching
menus.
    I was at the end opposite the Satellite Girls, with Jac to my right. Directly across from me was Ben Greenblott. I had so
far pretended, I think very convincingly, not to have noticed he was there. Instead I focused on the unfolding drama around
Brooklyn.
    “Havez-vous le steamed vegetables?” Brooklyn asked. “Knowez-vous les foods on le Zone Diet? Le South Beach?”
    “Brook, zip it,” Shoshanna said, not bothering to conceal her irritation. She twisted a lock of shiny dark hair between her
fingers, opened her phone and snapped it shut again, then physically turned her back on her number one Satellite Girl and
began talking to number two, Lacy Fowler, instead.
    “Havez-vous le grapefruit?” Brooklyn pressed.
    Jac snickered.
    “Havez-vous,” she muttered. “Does she actually think that’s French?”
    The waitress took the menu from Brooklyn and pointed at it, the way you’d show a kid in kindergarten an illustration from
a picture book.
    “We don’t
havez
anything but poutine,” she said in perfect unaccented English. “You can have fries plain, with meat, Italian style, Mexican
style, or extra cheesy. What’s it gonna be?”
    “Brooklyn, come on,” shouted one of the sporty boys. “We’re starving here. Just pick one.”
    “Just pick one,” chimed in other voices, most of them male.
    Alice leaned over and whispered something to Indira, who began giggling wildly. On Alice’s other side, Mikuru gazed down at
her plate and smiled. It wasn’t often one of the Satellite Girls made a scene.
    Shoshanna turned and gave her devoted slave a pointed, unpleasant look.
    “Pick one,” she commanded.
    Brooklyn instantly pointed at something on the menu, pressed her thin lips together, and made a sour face.
    “Small, large, or extra large?” the